Dinner 2023

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, Norm Matthews said:

Kimchi-Jjigae

Considering how few ingredients are needed, this is an amazing dish. We often order it in from Korean restaurants. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Tomorrow is forecast to be an unusually bitter day.  I am not working, and if I feel up to it, the plan is to dump the contents of my refrigerator freezer outside in the cold so that I can properly defrost the freezer.  I wish my freezer were self defrosting.

 

Accordingly, for dinner, I've defrosted a freezer container that I hope is a precious batch of Giuliano Bugialli's farro soup.  It is now heating.  Of course it might well be oatmeal.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Dinner was indeed farro soup.  I always intend to label things.

 

[Duvel]

9 hours ago, rotuts said:

did I see a Potato ?

 

bit a green on tip ?

 

some sauerkraut ?

Yeah, this was unexpected, but not bad: basically pickled veggies (no potato, but yellow carrot, and other) braised in the same pot as the sauerkraut. Don’t ask me how they keep it separated. But is was good - kind of sweet and sour …

 

9 hours ago, rotuts said:

what's going on w the 

 

Williams pear Schnaps

 

hunk of pear in the middle ?

This was distilled pear Schnaps, diluted from cask strength with pear juice (instead of water) and a small pickled pear ball in it … very pear-y 🤗

[liamsaunt]

Mutter paneer, naan, and rice

 

[weinoo]

This is the chicken that I've now tried for the 2nd time...

 

 

Roasted with some potatoes, onions, carrots. It's the Heritage chicken, from Trader Joe's, which they sell for $4/lb.

 

Not a bad bird.

[Anna N]

24 minutes ago, weinoo said:

This is the chicken that I've now tried for the 2nd time...

There are a few things that can succeed in getting my digestive juices flowing quite as well as a meal such as this. Looks as if you have nailed it. 

[liuzhou]

This was possibly / probably the ugliest looking dish I've had in China. But also one of the tastiest. 麻辣牛蛙 (má là niú wā), Mala Bullfrog (mala being the famous Sichuanese flavour from Sichuan peppercorns and chilli, often translated as 'hot and numbing' although it's actually 'numbing and hot' in the Chinese.

Frog with lotus root and onion. Served with rice.

[liamsaunt]

It was extremely cold here last night, I think the coldest it has been in a generation.  Such tundra-like weather called for hot soup.  I baked a loaf of caramelized onion bread, and made a pot of tomato tortellini soup.  My furnace made it through the night, and I see warmer weather on the horizon tomorrow, so things are looking up.  The temperature has raised to -2 (real feel -15) so it's getting more seasonable already.

 

 

 

[Shelby]

Fried chicken, potatoes, squash and broccoli for Sunday dinner

 

 

 

Sourdough and beef stew on a very cold evening

 

 

 

Roasted chicken and potatoes with stewed tomatoes

 

 

Pepperoni, spinach and mushroom calzones

 

[lindag]

42 minutes ago, liamsaunt said:

It was extremely cold here last night, I think the coldest it has been in a generation.  Such tundra-like weather called for hot soup.  I baked a loaf of caramelized onion bread, and made a pot of tomato tortellini soup.  My furnace made it through the night, and I see warmer weather on the horizon tomorrow, so things are looking up.  The temperature has raised to -2 (real feel -15) so it's getting more seasonable already.

 

 

 

 

I'm guessing this is the ATK recipe, no?

[Dejah]

On 2/2/2023 at 7:41 AM, KennethT said:

A friend of mine was talking about this dish recently so I felt compelled to make another batch, even though we had it a couple weeks ago.

 

Ayam buah keluak. This time though, I didn't stuff the Brazil nut shells with the keluak meat, I just dissolved 1 of them in the curry as it was cooking. Made a really big difference. This was probably the best I've made it.

That looks amazing!
Is buah keluak difficult to find? Or did you bring it back from a trip?

[Dejah]

Temperatures have been brutal here until yesterday. The coldest was -39C with windchill -47C. Good days to stay inside.

Panko crusted pork chops with some of the Deluxe Italian Spice from Silk Road (small sample pket). It had chili flakes in it and gave a nice little bite.

                                                                                

 

I saw a low carb Creamy Pesto Chicken recipe and thought I'd give it a go. Didn't have pesto sauce, and I added mushrooms and leftover steamed broccoli. It was nice and simple, with shaved Parmesan cheese on top. Made hubby garlic toast and I had the chicken on a bed of spinach.

 

                                                                                                     

 

Did a sous vide strip loin roast last night. Made gravy in the pan using the liquid from the sous vide bag. Lots of Montreal Steak spices!

 

                                                                                        

[mgaretz]

Sirloin with Brussels sprouts.

 

 

[rotuts]

@weinoo 

 

as @Anna N  has stated

 

that 

 

 

speaks to a style of Oven Roasted Chicken 

 

that has its place in the Pantheon .

 

would you give a bit more details ?

 

veg prep , prep of the chicken 

 

roasting method ?

 

I have my eye on this 

 

as the chicken here would be making a

 

huge difference , in the final result

 

when handled w care.

 

and I go to TJ's at least once a week

 

and rarely , these day to the Jura for that

 

red // white // blu chicken

 

and 

 

Id rather not look into other

 

right in front of me options 

 

why ?

 

this might be right in front of me

 

many thanks,

 

 

 

 

[Duvel]

Given the cold weather (there seems to be a pattern here), I was in the mood for a warm and nourishing soup. So I went out and bought mussels and fish for a fish chowder …

 

Back at home, little one discovered the mussels and was excited he would get Moules Frites, and - of course - my wife was also feeling more like that. Not feeling like prepping fries from scratch and only finding another potato convenience product in the freezer, they got Moules Rösti  instead 🤭 …

 

 

That left me with a large fish fillet and still desire for a rich soup. I went with my instincts and made the Sichuan classic water-boiled fish (shui zhu yu, 水煮鱼), with an extra helping of Sichuan pepper. I used my rather potent home-made chili oil, but still it was more ma than la. There is a huge pile of bean sprouts lurking under that fish dotted chili oil surface …

 

 

No complaints !

Edited February 4 by Duvel (log)

[KennethT]

4 hours ago, Dejah said:

That looks amazing!
Is buah keluak difficult to find? Or did you bring it back from a trip?

Thanks! Unless you're in Singapore or parts of Indonesia, buah keluak in its whole form (in the shell) is practically impossible to find. I've seen in on Etsy (shipped from Indonesia) but it was super expensive and you have no idea how many bad: good ones there are in the bag. A friend of mine, the owner of a Peranakan bakery, gave me a couple packs of buah keluak meat (without the shell) imported through a company in CA. Since then I've seen those packs on Amazon, so I guess it's not super hard to find anymore.

 

The packs look like this:

[weinoo]

2 hours ago, rotuts said:

would you give a bit more details ?

 

veg prep , prep of the chicken 

 

roasting method ?

 

Sure enough, @rotuts.

 

Wash the bird and make sure all the muck is out of the inside. This bird was fairly clean, and had neither giblets nor neck (I LIKE THE NECK).  Dry very well - salt and pepper inside and out (did this 4-6 hours earlier) and into the roasting pan, covered and back into the fridge. Take the bird out of the fridge while preheating the oven, so it's out of the fridge a minimum of 1/2 hour - 45 minutes.

 

Preheat oven to 400℉ (and take bird out of fridge) like 2 - 2.5 hours before you want to have dinner. I usually give my oven a good 45 minutes to preheat properly, hence starting 2 or so hours ahead of dinner time.

 

Prep veg pretty simple - cut onions into wedges leaving a bit of the root end attached. Red potatoes into quarters the long way. A few carrots also split the long way. Toss all the vegetables with salt and pepper and 2 T of (ahem) duck fat (or olive oil). Quantities depend on how long you want to keep eating leftovers (actually, the roasted onions and carrots go to making some stock - which I'll get to in a minute).

 

Toss vegetables into roasting pan with the bird, which gets started on its side. Roast 25 minutes, take pan out of oven, turn bird onto its opposite side, stir the vegetables around ( a wooden flat bladed spatula and silicon tipped tongs come in handy) and roaSt another 25 minutes. Now the bird gets turned breast up for the final 20 minutes or so (and the veggies get moved around some more. If shit is burning, a cup or two of water in the pan won't hurt). 

 

Cook the bird until it's done, as I was taught. I've been finding the birds I've been roasting lately do take about an hour and 10-15 minutes for a 3.5 lb. bird, but everyone's oven is different and every bird is different (as you well know). Also, here in this apartment, one of us likes more done than the other one, so that's who gets the breast meat while I nosh on the wings and leg or thigh.

 

Take the bird out of oven (I let it rest on the back of the stove, it's warm enough there) but don't cover it, which will only muck up the skin with steam. Remove veg and keep them warm somehow - (OH THE WARMING FUNCTION IN THE STEAM GIRL!). 10  - 15 minutes rest is good and then I pick that bird up and let the juices run out (theoretically, they run clear) into the pan which is getting deglazed with a little wine, stock, etc.  for a nice pan sauce.

 

Since it's just the Mrs. and me (I don't think I've ever roasted a chicken for guests), I carve her some breast meat, and take what I'm going to eat - usually the oysters, the wings, and maybe other pickings from the back, or a leg.  All the rest of the meat get picked off and I make stock with the bones, skin, leftover onions and carrots - I can get a decent enough quart of stock.

 

I'm most likely going to reheat the picked dark meat in a secondary prep - like ramen, Japanese curry, chicken soup...or something. With the leftover breast, I like to make chicken salad.

[rotuts]

@weinoo 

 

thank you.

 

will look for that sort of bird

 

@ TJ's  

 

tuesday /

 

no fresh bread Monday .

[weinoo]

5 minutes ago, rotuts said:

@weinoo 

 

thank you.

 

will look for that sort of bird

 

@ TJ's  

 

tuesday /

 

no fresh bread Monday .

 

This is what I've been seeing:

 

 

People had said birds are from the Cook's Venture venture. I can't verify.

[Anna N]

 

 

Re-heated dry-fried green beans with pork from yesterday's "Chinese" delivery. 

[Raamo]

So short story behind this dinner.  I got covid from the person who cut my hair almost 2 weeks ago.  That lead to us having to cancel two weekends (concerts with dinner out both times) including today.  I've also been unable to drink wine due to being sick and then to being on antivirals which keep the liver busy enough that alcohol is a bad idea.

 

Skip to today - I'm on the mend still - got a 2nd infection - and now on antibiotics - but they don't inhibit wine.

 

Waygu Ribeye has gone up quit a bit in price - so this is a $32 steak..  But we've saved so much money from not eating out...

 

 

I had mashed potatoes for lunch - so I decided to cube and fry these.  So tasty.  Not pictured is some Hawaii salt we picked up in Hawaii. 

 

Also not pictured other then the bottom of the glass is a 2012 HDV Cabernet Sauvignon.  I have 6 bottles of this wine - had no plans to open any of them up yet but the last 2 weeks have been hell.  I've not been this sick in over a decade.  So I was like screw it - lets open a really good bottle of wine. (It's on the higher price for cab then I normally buy) It had more fruit then I'm used to in my aged cabs - worked REALLY well with the steak.

 

Also I got to searzall the steak for the first time.  So that's cool.

Edited February 5 by Raamo (log)

[weinoo]

Since the oven being on yesterday served multiple purposes, I decided to make a batch of some sort of emergency dough - though I don't remember if it was the artisanal emergency or the NY emergency. Or maybe neither. My plan was for both a pan thing and a classic pizza.

 

 

Decided to do a half and half - so pizza rossa on half, and herbs, salt and olive oil on the other half.

 

 

And a classic (to me, at least)...

 

 

Had to have something to go along; baked some white beans, with bread crumbs and parmesan...

 

[Duvel]

12 minutes ago, weinoo said:

And a classic (to me, at least)...

 

Great looking pie … and yours keep getting rounder and rounder. Well done 🤗 !

[Dejah]

Had picked up a package of 3 turkey fillets when they were clearing them at Superstore, thru' their app Flashfood.

Stuffed, tied and roasted wuth carrots in the Ninja Air Fryer Oven.

Eater with mashed taters, green beans. I had mashed cauliflower.

Perfect size for 2 with leftovers for lunch. I prefer dark meat but this was moist and great with gravy.